Now WotC has taken Dragonlance (merged)

[Agamon]

Something stinks, and its not my socks.

Yep, something's rotten in the state of Washington....

 

[Fishbone]

As if the community wasn't going insane enough as it is they drop this not even a week after announcing 2 highly controversial mag cancellations. Doesn't seem too smart from a PR standpoint to me.
So, does this affect more than 1 percent of the community now?

 

[daemonslye]

Something stinks, and its not my socks.

Yep - Taking all their lumps at once I suppose. Man, to be an employee of that company right now - if you are an actual gamer with any sense of history... They have got to know what is going on.

Hopefully we get at least one person (with some form of conscience) from the company that breaks the silence and gives us a clue. I can't believe they have something added to the water that makes long-time gamer/employees think this is all just "awesome".

~D

 

[TheYeti1775]

As if the community wasn't going insane enough as it is they drop this not even a week after announcing 2 highly controversial mag cancellations. Doesn't seem too smart from a PR standpoint to me.
So, does this affect more than 1 percent of the community now?

Just possibly.

 

[freebfrost]

The license wasn't "yanked", it ended at the agreed upon time.

As for your first point, so the licensee should have all the power? Once you license something to someone they can renew it perpetually?

Do you work for WotC?

 

[Jim Hague]

We know from their history that they aren't. Unless you know something otherwise, since you work for them.

Yet you, who don't work for WotC, are privvy to insider information? C'mon, man. And implying that Ari's hiding something is pretty low as well.

 

[Imaro]

You're assuming they don't plan to do anything with it. We have no idea if that's the case, do we?

And this in a nutshell is the problem. People have vested money, time and attachments in these companies and products, while WotC hasn't even taken the time to comment publicly on what or where all this is heading. I like anticipation as much as the next guy, but pulling rugs out from under me without giving any type of reason or explanation was tired the first time. The build up for anticipation only goes so far. All I can say is I'm glad I decided to roll with Iron Kingdoms for D&D.

 

[mattcolville]

WotC views FR and DL as the two great IP creation successes. I'm astonished they ever let DL go in the first place and am not surprised they want to bring it back in-house.

If anything, it might be a result of the sales of Eberron. The Setting Search that produced Eberron was an attempt by WotC to engineer the kind of success they had with FR and DL, and never had with Dark Sun, Planescape, Birthright, et al.

If Eberron underperformed, it would be natural for them to say "let's get DL back in house." It's one of their huge hits.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

You have a weird idea of what ownership means my friend. If you rent your house to me, you can later come to me and say "hey, you were a good tenant, but you lease is up, and I want to empty the place out, repaint it, and move in myself".

That doesn't make you a bad guy. It's not "shameful" in any way.

No, but evicting someone who had no place to turn just so you could use the house to your store back-issues of National Geographic wouldn't do you much good karma-wise.

Bringing stuff in house so you can take a crack at it is one thing. Taking licenses back solely so that others *can't* do anything, while certainly withing their right, is customer-unfriendly. And my loyalty to a company as a consumer lasts exactly as long as their loyalty to me as a customer.

Now, obviously, we don't know whither Dragonlance. I never cared for it, myself, but it holds a place of regard in the D&D pantheon, and I hate to see those things fade away.

 

[Shroomy]

I always thought that the strength of the DL IP was in the novels, not the game products.